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cyberpunk,
post apocalyptic,
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Technothrillers
they’re a little eager.”
At her wild expression and hint of what might be out there, Gerry pulled the gun from the bag and took comfort from its entirely mechanical coldness.
“That’s m’boy. You shoot like hell if anything… weird comes your way, you hear?”
“Wait, what? Weird? Weird how?”
“You’ll know. Sit tight, precious.”
Petal turned and joined Gabriel on the grey stone platform outside of the train. It was no more than a few metres wide, and the stained, tiled wall curved upwards, creating an archway over the train. Gerry admired the organic nature of it: real materials, real handwork. He felt its gravity and presence. Qualities so often missing in nanotube-based materials and holo-projections. Beyond the platform, the train tunnel opened to a cloudless grey-blue sky. Red dust rose and spun into miniature twisters from the parched, bare ground. On the horizon, low and blocky, a series of buildings gathered together like a pack of sleeping dogs.
So this is the scorched earth… the results of the Cataclysm, Gerry thought as he pondered the nature of those buildings. Clearly not everything had been destroyed.
The wind picked up, changed direction, and blew his way.
He breathed in the scent: it smelled wet and heavy with promises, adventure, and danger—of times past, times before the Cataclysm. Nothing survived, they said. All was lost. Now, he knew different. Something did… out there in the dust another living thing existed. He tapped his foot eagerly as he gripped his gun. Gerry was never a patient man. The waiting pulled at him with the weight of gravity, of the tides, of that terrible yearning that boiled within him.
A deep breath and he calmed his nerves.
Petal and Gabriel looked back at him, faces straight, and then they turned a corner out of sight.
***
How long should he have waited? Gabe and Petal didn’t say, but they hadn’t returned in what must have been ten minutes. Or was it ten hours? While he waited, Gerry devoured the first three chapters of the Hacking With Helix book like a child discovering ice cream for the first time.
Imprinted on his mind, like maps, were exploit algorithms, defence mechanisms, early warning systems, and attack ideologies. For the first time in his life he felt like it was actually him who was capable of doing this stuff and not his AIA.
A thrill of excitement ran through him as he pictured himself exorcising demonic AIs like Gabe. The potential and the power—via his own mind and not through a preprogrammed device—made him feel more alive than he could remember. But it didn’t last.
A scream, certainly from Petal, erupted from outside and echoed down the tunnel.
Grabbing the bag and gripping the gun, Gerry ignored their advice and bolted out of the carriage onto the platform. He sprinted the hundred-or-so metres to the exit and spun left.
Gabriel lay at an awkward angle: bent over himself at the foot of a four-metre-high tower. It was barely wide enough to house two people. It looked like a stack of kids’ grey building blocks. A shadow moved behind a small glass window at head height.
Petal stood to the side of the tower. She, too, was bent over, but still on her feet. Blood oozed from her mouth into a dark pool on the dusty earth.
Gerry rushed over.
Petal turned. “Go back!”
“What’s happened?” Gerry asked, wondering if Gabe was dead.
Before Petal could respond, a door in the side of the tower creaked open, and a round metal barrel extended from the gloom. Petal grabbed at Gerry’s shirt and pulled him aside as a thunderous explosion erupted from the gun. He’d never heard such a deep, powerful explosion before. It made his guts squirm.
He fell to the floor, scrabbling in the sickly pool of blood as Petal tried to pull him away from the corner of the tower. A low, heavy voice called out in frustration from within the tower. “You burnt-out, cheap hacking swines!”
The metal door flung open and clanged
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